Saturday, April 14, 2007

Attacking hardened and deeply buried target is one of the Air Force 128's biggest challenges. They are meeting this challenge with a devastating new approach: a focused underground shockwave that amounts to an artificial earthquake.

At present the kinetic approach 128; “ a.k.a. 128 brute force" is favored; the most powerful weapon in the inventory is the BLU-113, a 4,600 lb weapon with a thick steel casing capable of piercing 22 feet of concrete -- or 100 feet of dirt -- before exploding. There are plans to go even bigger, with a monster 30,000 lb 128;˜Massive Ordnance Penetrator⦣128;™ which would take the maximum depth to 60 feet. That 128's about as big as you can carry on a plane.

Massive area of destruction:

an array of 20 Deep Diggers would be detonated together to produce a shockwave which will collapse all underground structures to a depth of 300 feet over a 200-yard square area.

We don't need to use Nukes:

the Deep Digger array is more effective than a 340-kiloton nuclear weapon optimised to attack underground targets.

Wow

- Deep penetration means that all of the blast goes into creating an underground shockwave, not just digging a crater. For blasting rock, it's basic that the charge need to be drilled to a depth to be effective.

- Deep Digger parachutes down to a soft landing before digging in. Other bunker busters hit the ground very hard and experience a deceleration tens of thousands of g's. This affects their reliability, and the loss of a few warheads may make the whole array ineffective.

- Deep Digger may be able to maneuver underground, correcting the configuration of the array after it is in place.

"As he gazed around him the youth felt a flash of astonishment at the blue, pure sky and the sun gleaming on the trees and fields. It was surprising that Nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden process in the midst of so much devilment."